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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27789373">The Truth</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kevinfreakinsolo/pseuds/kevinfreakinsolo'>kevinfreakinsolo</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 14:22:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,049</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27789373</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kevinfreakinsolo/pseuds/kevinfreakinsolo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas gives his confession to Dean. But this time, we get to hear Dean's response. (Sort of).</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel/Dean Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>35</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Truth</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is my version of a fix-it. If we keep the confession scene itself the way that it is, then fix things after all the angst has occured. If you're looking for a fluffy perfect fix-it....this ain't it. This is how it should have gone down.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“You’ve changed me, Dean.” Cas looked at him with tears in his eyes. He was so happy. It was so beautiful to see him so happy.</p><p>	“Why does this sound like a goodbye?” said Dean, feeling a lump growing in his throat. He knew the answer before Cas even said it.</p><p>	“Because it is.”</p><p>	They held eye contact for a moment, Dean unable to understand or accept the gravity of the situation.</p><p>	“I love you,” said Cas. He smiled as he heard himself finally say it, as though it were a miracle. Maybe it was.</p><p>	Dean shook his head gently in disbelief. He couldn’t say that to him. Not like this. Not here. It was supposed to be different.</p><p>	“Don’t do this, Cas,” said Dean. But not because he didn’t want to hear it. He wanted it differently. He wanted it to be perfect, to have a promise of a lifetime behind the words. To be able to laugh and to hold him and kiss him, to prove to him with every breath he took for the rest of their lives together that the same was true for him, it always was. Not here, with Billie coming to kill the both of them, knowing that everyone he knew was dying and it was all his fault. </p><p>	Cas stared longingly into the eyes of the one he wanted more than anything and believed he could never have. Behind Dean, the portal to the Empty appeared. Dean turned around as it bled its way into reality, and he teared up as the full gravity of the situation set in. He turned back to Cas and saw the door behind him swing open. Billie had gotten in.</p><p>	Dean looked at Cas, whose eyes had been locked lovingly on him the whole time. It suddenly set in, in that moment, that this was the last time he would ever see his angel. What could he say? How could he express the significance of the feelings he had for him, that he had always had for him? What would have taken a lifetime, he had only one moment for. </p><p>	He saw their life together flash before his eyes. Cas giving up his grace for good to be a human, to grow old with him. Finishing this saving-the-world bullshit, and this time, it stays saved. Hanging up the life for good, and choosing a new one, with him. Finally getting up the guts to propose to him, the right way. Bickering with him on their porch as they complain of their aging aching backs, holding hands while rolling their eyes at each other. Cheek kisses with memorized coffee cups. Wrapping his arms around him from behind as he does dishes from the dinner they made together. Goodnight kisses. Morning breath. Holding his head in his lap as they don’t watch the random movie on the TV. Choosing him, every day, for the rest of their lives. He saw it all, everything he wanted most, and he knew Cas could see it too.</p><p>	“Cas-” </p><p>	Cas reached out and tenderly held his shoulder. He looked one last time at the one he loved the most, and said the last thing Dean ever wanted to hear from him, the last thing Dean would ever hear from him.</p><p>	“Goodbye, Dean.”</p><p>	Before he knew what was happening, Cas shoved him aside, onto the ground. Billie stepped forward as the Empty reached out and took her, then took Cas as he breathed one last sigh of relief.</p><p>	Just as quickly as it appeared, it vanished. The room was quiet, empty, as though nothing had happened at all. Dean was sitting in the same spot that Cas had shoved him. He heard a buzzing sound, and realized it was his phone. Sam was calling. It was important. The most important phone call ever made. But it was like it was happening somewhere else, to someone else.</p><p>	With shaking hands he dropped the ringing phone onto the ground and held his head, covering his eyes to block the view of this new, horrible world. A world without Cas. And it was only then, after that bleak reality had set in, that he started to cry.</p><p>____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________</p><p>	“Where’s Cas?” Sam asked when they finally met back up.</p><p>	Dean looked at him, and Sam knew.</p><p>	“What happened?” he asked gently.</p><p>	Dean shook his head as tears already began forming in his eyes again. “He sacrificed himself for me. Again. And I just- just had to stand there, I couldn’t even-” He was cut off by the sound of his own sobs. But Sam could tell he had more to say.</p><p>	“Couldn’t even what, Dean?” </p><p>	Dean looked back up at him, his baby brother. His worried face had always looked the same, but it only came out like this in the most serious of times. He looked back down at the ground and swallowed, then took a deep breath.</p><p>	“He told me he loved me, Sammy.” He exhaled and felt the relief of the weight lifted off of his shoulders. “He told me he loved me.”</p><p>	“Why is that such a bad thing?” asked Sam. Obviously, he had known. He had always known.</p><p>	Dean closed his eyes, wishing things were different, that he could tell him that it wasn’t a bad thing. But it was. “Because I didn’t get to tell him the same. I never got to.”</p><p>	They sat together in silence for a minute, before Sam broke it. “You know he knew. Of course he did.”</p><p>	“But I didn’t get to tell him. I just wanted to tell him… I don’t think anyone ever has. In all the time he’s been alive, no one ever told him how loved he is, how incredible. How... awful this world would be without him. No one ever bothered to tell him, Sam. I was supposed to be the first. And I screwed it up. I didn’t get the chance… I’m in love with him, and I lost him before I could tell him.”</p><p>	Sam nodded and looked down, not about to make light of a situation he wasn’t hurting in the same degree from. “We’ll get him back, Dean. We’ll find a way.”</p><p>	Dean nodded, then gave the tiniest notion of a smile. “Yeah. We have to.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>If y'all really like this I might make the reunion part as well :) But for now, this is it.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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